Winter Wool Workshop - Part One

We had a great workshop! Everyone had fun, no one froze to death (although little Mira wasn't so sure about that!) and we all learned a lot :-).  This was my first farm workshop and I had the best of all possible students.  Super fun, well prepared, relaxed, patient, interested, interesting...  We also had fabulous wool!

Janbaby came down to help (thank you, thank you :-D) and luckily she thought to grab a couple  of short videos.  Here is a dorky (as always) one of me opening The Big Box from Nistock Farms.

I think this is Nistock Taffy (above) unrolled, but I didn't do a super job documenting everything so it may have been Nistock Freckles.  I should have added note taking to Janbaby's job description ;-). Next time!

How's that for a pretty lock?

On the other side of the spectrum, here is a shorter, finer Ile de France cross fleece.  Another shepherd offered to send three additional fleeces in exchange for some feedback and we were sure glad she did. In total we had six different fleeces from short and fine to medium and long and this super lovely gray fleece in between.

This is the daughter of the white fleece above.  The father was a Bluefaced Leicester and she sent the mother/daughter combo to show how well he'd upgraded the ewe.  And he really did!  

Ooh

Ahh

Nistock Luna was another favorite!

We ended up moving the skirting table outside in the sun after lunch.  It really was quite pleasant and I thought it was so neat seeing the wool out in the snow.  Something crazy that only I would like....except now I have some new crazy friends who'll be right out there with me ;-).

Not sure if you noticed the hay in the earlier picture.  We called this sheep The Boudreaux Cousin...and she actually probably is.  A beautiful long, soft black fleece that was just ripe for collecting everything.  In just a short while, with minimal effort, she was picked clean and ready to wash.  Now, if I can just get them to come back after Boudreaux's sheared ;-).

We pulled off chunks of each of the six fleeces, washed them and set them out to dry overnight. Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of how we processed them.  And probably another picture of Miss Mira ;-D.

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Mug Update

Um, you guys, they are sold out!  I don't even know what to say.  Well, the first thing to say is Thank You!  I kept a few as gifts for our vets, sheep shearer, one for me... but there are nearly 100 mugs headed all over the country and one to Scotland!  Our funny little family waking up with our funny big family everywhere just makes me...I mean, how sweet is that!!!

Single mug orders are going out today and multi mug orders will go out tomorrow.  I'm sending quick emails as I copy down your address, so if you haven't received an email by the end of the day tomorrow, let me know.  We have enough mugs to fill everyone's order as of last night.  I placed a second mug order this morning and they should be here on the 13th.

Coffee and cookies for all!